The other reviewer summed up the episode very well so I'll just add some personal thoughts. Abortion is a sensitive subject and I was quite looking forward to how Family Guy were going to deal with the subject. In my view Family Guy has suffered from a drop in quality where it seems with all the recurring gags that have been circulating they themselves have even resorted to making gags about making gags. Could it be a sign that it is growing stale? Regardless I approached this episode with a sense of optimism that the episode would play out in an entertaining fashion regardless of any prior conceptions that I had about the show itself. Where we come to the episode and how does it play up? Er average. There's not really anything special to mention, Fox refused to air the episode but in truth I don't think it had any sort of special ability to offend any more than other Family Guy episodes. It never really managed to approach the subject matter with much sense of conveying any sort of analysis and the subject of abortion itself wasn't prominent really where the rest of the episode was build up towards the tackling of the issue. Lois agrees to be a surrogate for her friend's baby but when her friend and husband die in a car accident it prompts a long debate about what should be done. Lois thinks that the baby should be aborted but Peter disagrees when he sees an anti-abortion video which was admittedly quite funny.
The problem is that once the premise we were all waiting for was finally approached it was too rushed. The start with Peter's wrongful assumption about Lois' old friend's visit played out for too long when the initial gag was funny but it was just overkilled. The episode just follows a formula and I didn't think there was anything special that warranted the refusal to air it on Fox as it was just like any other episode. The reason I question it as a possible missed opportunity is that it never really gets off the ground and I didn't think it would manage to challenge any bigoted views in the sense that it was trying to do. The ending with Lois' speech about the baby and Peter breaking the fourth wall was all too predictable and I found myself thinking 'what that's it?' Anyway it isn't bad just didn't live up to its potential and to be fair there were a couple of good jokes in there and if you were to view on its own merits it would simply be a half decent Family Guy episode that I overall enjoyed and in my opinion that's how it should be viewed.
The problem is that once the premise we were all waiting for was finally approached it was too rushed. The start with Peter's wrongful assumption about Lois' old friend's visit played out for too long when the initial gag was funny but it was just overkilled. The episode just follows a formula and I didn't think there was anything special that warranted the refusal to air it on Fox as it was just like any other episode. The reason I question it as a possible missed opportunity is that it never really gets off the ground and I didn't think it would manage to challenge any bigoted views in the sense that it was trying to do. The ending with Lois' speech about the baby and Peter breaking the fourth wall was all too predictable and I found myself thinking 'what that's it?' Anyway it isn't bad just didn't live up to its potential and to be fair there were a couple of good jokes in there and if you were to view on its own merits it would simply be a half decent Family Guy episode that I overall enjoyed and in my opinion that's how it should be viewed.